The upper room of the
first chapter of the Acts corresponds with Bethany, the
"house of figs", and Bethany with the upper
room. We are going to take up that thought and, as the
Lord helps us, follow it out to greater fullness. What is
before us is the Lord's desire to have at the end what He
had at the beginning - to have in His people,
spiritually, that which He Himself constituted by His own
presence at the beginning: and if I were asked to put
into a word what I feel the object of the Lord to be, I
should say, speaking symbolically, that it is
'Bethanies'. For Bethany, to my mind, most fully
corresponds to the Lord's thought: He would have things
on the basis of Bethany, constituted according to
Bethany, and have His universal Church represented
locally by 'Bethanies'. Now I am going to ask you to look
at seven passages where Bethany is mentioned.

THE
LORD RECOGNISED AND RECEIVED

Luke 10:38. "Now
it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a
certain village (do not forget that villages
represent local assemblies): and a certain woman named
Martha received him into her house. (You know whose
the house was now, who was the head of that house.) And
she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus'
feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about
much serving, and came to him, and said..."

Now here, in this first mention of Bethany, we have one
or two things which in principle represent that Church,
and that assembly, and that house, which the Lord has His
heart set upon, and I fasten at once upon one word:
"And a certain woman named Martha received
him into her house." The word "received"
is the key-word to this whole thing, and it represents
immediately a great difference. It is a discriminating
word, a differentiating word.

One remembers that it was said concerning His coming from
glory to this earth: "He came unto his own, and his
own received him not" (John 1:11). We shall remember
that He said of Himself: "The foxes have holes, and
the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man
hath not where to lay his head" (Luke 9:58). And if
it really did break upon us with anything like its real
meaning, when we reflect as to who it is of whom the
first is said, and who is saying the second, it would
leave us astonished. Here is the Creator of all, the
Proprietor of all, the Lord of heaven and of earth; the
Lord who has greater right to everything and anything
than any other being in the universe; the Lord, for whom
and through whom all things were made - and He came and
had not where to lay His head in the world of His
creation, in the realm of all His sovereign rights. He
was not received, but, as truly expressing the attitude
even of His own kinsfolk to Him, He represented them as
saying: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him,
and take his inheritance. And they took him, and cast him
forth..." (Matthew 21:38,39).

But here we read: "And a certain woman named
Martha received him..." "My church" -
"My church" - His assembly, His
spiritual house, is the place where He is gladly received
and finds His rest. It is His place, His place in
a world which rejects Him; it is the place where He is
recognised. Do you notice that when assemblies are being
scattered over the face of the earth it is always that
which is the beginning of an assembly? They
"receive" the word. Pentecost was that: "Then
they that received his word..." (Acts 2:41). At
Philippi, "a certain woman named Lydia... whose
heart the Lord opened, to give heed unto the things which
were spoken by Paul. And when she was baptized, and her
household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me
to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide
there" (Acts 16:14,15). That is the beginning of
the assembly - it is like that everywhere. It is a
spiritual perception issuing in an open-hearted
reception. That is the first thing which befeatures His
Church: "received". It is the giving Him a
place, the place of honour.

Now that is very simple, but it represents much to the
Lord, and it carries us a long way, because it represents
something more than the Lord coming just to be a
sojourner in the midst. It represents that the Lord has
got a footing, a foothold, a place which provides Him
with that which is necessary to Him to secure all His
rights universally. Let me illustrate.

You remember the tragic story in II Samuel 15, of the
rejection of David in the usurping of Absalom. It is a
pathetic story - David driven away from his place;
leaving, passing out of, the realm of his rights. One and
another accompany him, and Zadok the priest brings the
ark of God with him, but David turns to Zadok and says:
"Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall
find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me
again, and show me both it, and his habitation"
(vs.25). The inference is: 'When I come back, I shall
have in the city, in the place of my rejection, that
which is sympathetic with me, to which I can come back. I
shall not come back a stranger; I shall not come back to
nothing; I shall not come back to find no place; I shall
not come back and find there is no home for me: I shall
come back to something that is one with me. Zadok, you
are one with me; yes, you wanted to come out with me -
this is a perfect sympathy. Now go back into the city,
and when I come back I shall come back to something that
is with me'

And that is the principle here. The assembly here
provides the Lord with that in which He is now, by His
Spirit. It declares that He has a foothold in a rejecting
world, and He is coming back to that. He will have
something to come back to which is on His side and which,
being on His side, will provide Him with the ground for
re-establishing His universal rights, just as Zadok did
for David.

And that is why the Lord would have His Church here in
assemblies, local assemblies, over the face of the earth.
They are testimonies to His rights, in a world where
those rights are disputed and disowned; and they stand
there to say: 'Yes, His rights are the supreme rights in
this world, not the rights of the usurper', and they
maintain that testimony. When He comes back, they are to
be the means, the instrument, of His recovery of those
rights which have been disputed and from which He has
been driven out. There is a good deal bound up with
receiving the Lord. He is coming back to His own because
He is already there in possession.

You understand why the Devil is always out to destroy, if
possible, the local expression of the Church; to destroy
the little companies of the Lord's people who are living
in heavenly union and fellowship with Him. It is because
they represent His rights - the Lord's rights - and they
are there all the time disputing by their very presence
the rights of the usurper. The ark of the testimony is
there; and while that is there, on the side of the Lord,
the usurper has not universal sway. He knows that it
represents that his kingdom is defeated, is menaced, and
it is a constant thorn in his side. And so, if possible,
he will quench it, break it, divide it, do anything to
get rid of that local expression which is according to
Christ and in which He is. That is what the Church ought
to be as locally represented; that is what every believer
ought to be here on earth: a foothold to the Lord in this
earth, a testimony to His sovereign lordship and right.
To receive the Lord provides Him with such a
foothold and such a testimony.

And so we see that the very first step as related to
Bethany is of the greatest significance. It represents a
principle of tremendous importance. The Church is
constituted, to begin with, upon the simple principle
that Christ has found a place: amidst all the
range of rejection He has found a place.

HIS
HEART'S SATISFACTION

Now we continue with the
passage: "... received him into her house. And
she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus'
feet, and heard his word." Literally the words
are: "who also took her seat at the feet of Jesus
and went on listening to His word." "Took her
seat at His feet and went on listening." It was that
which irritated Martha: she went on listening.
What Martha really said to the Lord was in the same
tense, the imperfect. When she came to the Lord she said:
"Dost thou not care that my sister doth KEEP ON
LEAVING me to serve alone?" "Keep on
leaving me" - because she "kept on
listening"!

What is this? Well, it is that which provides the Lord
with what He most desires. It is the heart satisfaction
of the Lord that is represented by this. The heart
satisfaction of the Lord was found in what Mary did. It
is here that we understand the meaning of Bethany. You go
over to Matthew 21, and you will find the story of the
fig tree. Jesus is moving between Jerusalem and Bethany;
He has been into Jerusalem and has seen things in the
temple, and His heart has been pained, shot through with
the agony of disappointment. He has looked round upon all
things, and has said nothing, and has gone back to
Bethany. In the morning, as He is in the way, being
hungry and seeing a fig tree, He comes up to it, to see
whether perhaps it is bearing fruit. But He finds none,
and says, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward
for ever"; and as they return, the disciples mark
that the fig tree is withered and dead; they point out
the fact.

Now that fig tree, as we know, was bound up with
Jerusalem, and was a type of Judaism as it then was. The
heart disappointment which the Lord had met in the temple
was one with His heart disappointment in coming hungry to
the fig tree and finding no fruit; the two things are
one. That order of things, then, passes out of His realm
of interest; Judaism goes out for the rest of the age -
"Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for
ever" (Gr. "unto the age"). It cannot
satisfy Him, and it goes; it is a withered tree providing
the Lord with nothing.

But when that heart disappointment is felt so acutely,
and registered in that way by Him, He goes to Bethany,
and Bethany means "the house of figs". Not in
the temple, and not in Jerusalem, does the Lord find His
satisfaction, but in Bethany. That is why He was always
going there. Heart satisfaction for Him now was not in
the cold, lifeless, formal religious system of the day,
but in the living, throbbing, warm atmosphere of the
Bethany home. He always knew that, while His words were
rejected in Jerusalem, they would be accepted there, and
listened to eagerly, and there would always be someone
who would 'keep on' listening.

I am impressed with Acts 2; it says that after Pentecost
those who believed "continued stedfastly in the
apostles' teaching" (vs.42). You see, there the
Church came in, and that is its feature: "they
continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching." We
are so used to those words that they do not seem to
convey very much to us. Will you bear with a simple
practical way of seeking to apply it?

In these pages certain things are being said. Now you
will read them, and you will go your way, and perhaps you
will remember them for a certain length of time; perhaps
for a long time you will remember Bethany. Mention of
Bethany will bring back something - certain things that
you have read. You may speak of this message as a more or
less good one, an interesting message, or something like
that. What a difference between that and your going away
and 'continuing stedfastly in the teaching'! You must
yourself interpret this, and say to yourself: 'Now what
does it mean for me to continue stedfastly in that?'

The word really is 'persisting'. "They persisted
in the apostles' teaching". There is all the
difference between persisting in the teaching, and going
away and saying: 'Well, that was a very nice message'.
'Persisting' represents the practical, positive
application of the heart to the truth, and that
constitutes His Church; it is where that which comes from
Him is received and the whole heart, the whole life, is
given to it. There is abandonment to it.

And that was probably what Martha did not like. Mary was
abandoned to it, she was given to it; and that is what
the Lord is seeking. I wonder what would be the result if
we took that attitude toward every word of Divine truth
that came to us. When I think of the mountains of truth
that have been built up, I cannot help asking the
question: 'What is the percentage of real application to
that truth on the part of those who hear it?' It was
because those at the beginning took such a practical
attitude toward the things which they heard, and
persisted in them, that you had the effectiveness there.
They did not go away and say: 'What a wonderful sermon
Peter preached today!' No, they persisted in the
apostles' teaching.

That is what the Lord wants. That is what satisfies His
heart. Mary took her seat at His feet and went on
listening to His word, and that satisfied His heart when
all else disappointed Him. Heart satisfaction must be a
feature of the life of the Lord's people; and heart
satisfaction to Him is just this, that we hang upon His
word, we appraise it rightly, we regard it as the supreme
thing. The assembly must be the "house of figs"
for the Lord.

ADJUSTED
SERVICE

Next let us look at
Martha. "But Martha was cumbered about much
serving, and came to him, and said..." The Greek
is very strong: it means that she walked up to Him and
involved Him in this. It implies that she regarded Him as
responsible, and if she had said all that was in her
mind, she would have said: 'You are responsible for this,
You are involved in this, and it is up to You to put it
right.' That is what is implied by the original words
here - regarding Him as the one involved in it, and He
could if He would, and He ought to, put it right. It
implies that she burst out. She had been bottling this
thing up, and at last, able to contain it no longer, she
went up to Him and burst out: "Lord, dost thou
not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid
her therefore that she help me."

Now I want you to get the force of the situation, and it
will help you with Martha. We must understand Martha's
mood and position. "Cumbered about much
serving" hardly conveys to us what really was the
situation. We get from the translation an altogether
imperfect impression, I think, of exactly how things
were. The Greek word here is a word which means "was
distracted", "pulled in different
directions". Probably her anxiety showed in her
face. And what was the anxiety over? Many household
cares, perhaps many dishes; preoccupations of all kinds.
And the Lord said to Martha: 'Martha, you are bothered
about all sorts of secondary considerations; you have got
more than you can handle. There is but one thing that is
really necessary -'.

You are beginning to understand the situation now, are
you not? It was simply that there was necessary an
adjustment of things on the part of Martha, so that what
was most important should have its place. It was not that
the Lord was out of sympathy with Martha's providing them
with a meal, but He saw that she was causing this meal
business to become such an elaborate and extensive thing
as to be altogether out of proportion, and to put the
more essential things into a place much less than the
non-essential.

Yes, a meal may be right, but oh, let us put things in
their right proportion. Let us see to it that temporal
things do not overwhelm spiritual. Do not let us become
so anxious and distracted about the passing things that
the spiritual things are eclipsed. For the one thing
which ought to be made to keep all the other things in
their right places - they are all right in their places -
is the thing which comes from the lips of the Lord.

You see, it is a matter of proportion, it is a matter of
where you are placing the most emphasis. It is a matter
of whether you are allowing the things of this life so to
absorb, and to occupy, and to draw you round with
anxiety, that the greater things are not getting a
chance. And we all agree now, we have no more quarrel
with the Master over Mary, when we see it like that. What
was necessary was that there should be an adjustment of
things: so that, while these other matters had a place,
and a right place, they were in their place and in
their own measure; whilst the supreme things were allowed
to predominate and were not submerged in those lesser
matters which, after all, are not the abiding things.

Now, that was the whole situation. In the House of God,
the thing that matters more than all our business, all
our feverish activities to do a thousand and one things
of Christian work - the one thing that matters is getting
to know the Lord, and giving the Lord a chance to make
Himself known. Feverish activities so often, in what is
called 'the church', exclude the voice of the Lord, shut
Him out; it is all what we are doing, and so little of
what He is getting a chance to say. The place that
satisfies Him is the place of adjustment to the supreme
things.

Well, that is Martha.

PRECIOUS
OINTMENT POURED FORTH

Now we turn for the
fourth thing to Matthew 26:6-13. It is the same village,
and now the woman with her "alabaster cruse of
exceeding precious ointment". The incident
speaks to us in the first instance of the recognition of
the worth of the Lord Jesus. The recognition of the worth
of the Lord Jesus. All who looked on, as good as said:
'He is not worth it'; that is what it amounted to. 'He is
not worth it.' Of course they would not have put it like
that. She recognised His worth - that He was worth the
'exceeding preciousness'. It was the exceeding
preciousness of Christ that was in view here, as
something recognised. That, I think, is the main feature.
It is a feature of Bethany, it is a feature of the upper
room, it is a feature of "My church". It is a
feature of the Lord's assembly, it is a feature of the
people who are after His own heart: the recognition of
His exceeding preciousness, His exceeding worth; that
there is nothing too costly to lay at His feet. "Unto
you therefore which believe he is precious (is the
preciousness)" (1 Pet. 2:7).

Now, that is very simple, and yet again it is a thing
that draws forth the deep appreciation of the Lord Jesus.
It is again a thing which gives feature to a very much
beloved village. In other words it is a thing which makes
His assembly of great value to Him, that there His worth
is recognised, and He is appreciated and appraised at His
true value. That must mark the house of the Lord. It is a
feature that must be developed more and more. It is a
thing to which we must attend, that we have a ready and
an ever-growing recognition of the preciousness and worth
of the Lord Jesus. Oh, how different this is from the
merely formal church system! We can hardly say that the
outstanding feature of that is a true heart-appreciation
of the worth and of the value of the Lord Jesus. Where
that appreciation is, you have the assembly; where it is
not, whatever else you may have of ornate and elaborate
presentation, you have not got the assembly, it is not
the place of His delight.

I think I see something else here. The brokenness of the
cruse brings out into expression the preciousness of the
ointment. It is the 'vessel of fragile clay' which, being
broken, makes possible the manifestation and expression
of the glories of Christ. While that cruse is whole,
strong, and sound in itself, something which you would
look at and take account of in itself; something that
would cause you to say: 'That is a beautiful vase, that
is a wonderful piece of alabaster'; - you are not getting
at the secret. We may take account of men, as splendid
intellects, splendid men, wonderful preachers and so on -
be occupied with the vase, the cruse - and the other be
sealed, be hidden; but when the cruse is broken,
shattered, then you get at the tabernacle secret of the
glory of Christ.

You see it in Paul. I suppose Saul of Tarsus was a
wonderful bit of alabaster intellectually, morally,
religiously. He tells us that he was; he tells us all
that he was, all that he gloried in and that men looked
at and no doubt praised; but he was smashed and it is no
longer Saul, and it is no longer Paul, but it is the
beauty and glory of Christ. The fragrance of Christ comes
out when the cruse is broken.

And, beloved, it is just like that in our experience. The
Church, the true Church, has been allowed to be
shattered, and shattered again, and the members
individually are so often allowed to be broken and broken
again; but has it not proved through history that, for
the Church and for the individual, the breaking, the
shattering, the smashing, has brought about an expression
of the glories of Christ in a wonderful way? It is just
like that. We go through a new experience of being broken
- we put it in other ways sometimes and say we are being
brought more deeply into the death of Christ, coming into
a fresh experience of the Cross: however we may put it,
it means breaking, it means the breaking of the cruse -
but believe me, beloved, it means a fuller expression and
knowledge of the glory of Christ, and it will bring us to
a new appreciation of Him. We shall discover Him in the
time of our brokenness. And in the same way the Church
passes through the way of the Cross, but comes by the
breaking to the worth of the Lord Jesus.

THE
POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION

We pass to John and the
well-known chapter 11. Here is Bethany again in view, and
this time it is the raising of Lazarus which comes before
us. We will not go through the whole story and take its
details, but simply come swiftly to its one conclusion at
the end. Bethany, in this instance, becomes the scene,
the sphere, of the manifestation of resurrection power,
resurrection life. There are many other things here.
There is a wonderful expression of love; there is a
wonderful expression of fellowship here in this chapter.
Far away from Bethany the Lord said to His disciples: "Our
friend Lazarus is fallen asleep". "Our
friend"; not "My friend", but "our
friend". You see, it is fellowship. "Now
Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus."
It is love. All these are features of Bethany; but the
outstanding feature here is the manifestation of His
resurrection, the power of His resurrection, resurrection
life.

And here again Bethany is an illustration of the Church
that He is building. We know this from Ephesians, the
'Church Epistle', as we call it. We very soon come to our
being "quickened... together with Christ" (Eph.
2:5). The Church is the vessel in which the power of His
resurrection is displayed; and here again we not only
testify to the fact, to the doctrine, but we have to
apply the test, that the assembly according to the mind
of the Lord is that in which His resurrection power and
life are displayed.

Now, I know, when things like that are said, so often
there is that vacant feeling that remains: 'Yes, we know
it ought to be so, just as we ought to be
crucified with Christ; we know we ought to be risen with
Christ, and it is quite true that we ought to know the
power of His resurrection, and His resurrection life'.
That is said again and again, but we leave it there. The
point is: how is it to be?

Now, we have to recognise that the Lord has brought His
Church into being for the specific purpose of displaying
the power of His resurrection, and we should dedicate
ourselves unto the Lord for that very end. That is the
way: in recognising that the object, the very object of
our being in that Church, of that Body, is that He might
display in us His resurrection power and life. We,
recognising that, have a definite understanding with our
Lord that we are consecrated to Him; now our
responsibility ends there, if it is from our hearts, and
the Lord will begin His work.

We shall not be able to raise ourselves any more than we
can crucify ourselves, but we must recognise that the
Lord's dealings with us are with that in view. In order
to display the power of His resurrection, He will very
often have to take the attitude toward us of letting
things get well beyond all human power to remedy or save,
of allowing things to go so far that there is no other
power in all the universe that can do anything whatever
to save the situation. He will allow death,
disintegration, to work, so that nothing, nothing in the
universe is of any avail, except the power of His
resurrection.

We shall come to the place where Abraham came, who became
the great type of faith which moved right into
resurrection: "He considered his own body now as
good as dead" (Rom. 4:19). That is the phrase used
by the apostle about Abraham: "as good as
dead". And Paul came into that: "We had the
sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust
in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead" (2
Cor. 1:9). Whatever else men may be able to do in the
realm of creation, they stop short when death has
actually taken place; they can do no more. Resurrection
is God's act, and God's alone. Men can do very many
things when they have got life, but when there is no life
it is only God who can do anything. And God will allow
His Church and its members oft-times to get into such
situations as are altogether beyond human help, in order
that He may give the display, which is His own display,
in which no man has any place to glory.

So said the Lord Jesus: "This sickness is not
unto death, but for THE GLORY OF GOD, that the Son of God
might be glorified thereby." Glorified! We have
dedicated ourselves to that course of things - that is,
we have dedicated ourselves to a line of human despair;
but how slow we are to accept it in its outworking. When
things get to a desperate situation, we kick so much and
think that all has gone wrong. It may be just going right
for the Lord! Oh, yes, it is desperate; that
consideration does not take away from the desperateness
of it, the awfulness of it; but if it is going to provide
the Lord with His supreme opportunity to raise His
pre-eminent testimony, then it is right - that is, it
will be right in its issue.

When at last, in eternity, we read the story of the
Church, which is His Body, and see all that it really did
come through, we shall have to confess that no human
institution, no man-made thing, could have survived,
could have gone through that which the saints went
through. When it is understood in the light of eternity
and appraised by true spiritual standards, we shall say
that none but God Almighty could have achieved that,
could have brought it through: that it has undoubtedly
become the vehicle of the expression of "the
exceeding greatness of his power" (Eph. 1.19); and
that is to say a great deal. If "the exceeding
greatness of his power" is necessary to this, well,
that says much for what we have to be brought out of,
doesn't it? If "the weakness of God is stronger than
men" (1 Cor. 1:25), what must "the exceeding
greatness of his power" represent?

Well, that is in resurrection; as you know, the words are
connected with that: "the exceeding greatness of his
power to us-ward who believe, according to that working
of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ,
when he raised him from the dead" (Eph. 1:19,20).
That is "to us-ward who believe". Now the
Church, the Bethany testimony, is to be a testimony to
the power of His resurrection, and if His methods with us
are making that necessary, then let us take encouragement
and comfort from the fact that we are thus to be a true
expression of what He desires of His Church.

CELEBRATING
HIS VICTORY

We pass from chapter 11
of John to chapter 12. "Jesus therefore six days
before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was,
whom Jesus raised from the dead. So they made him a
supper there: and Martha served" (evidently she
had not gathered, from the Lord's words to her, that
service was wrong; she is still serving - it is all right
now); "but Lazarus was one of them that sat at
meat with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of
spikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus,
and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was
filled with the odour of the ointment."

Here we have the feast, and the feast has several
elements. One, represented by Mary and her action, speaks
of worship. Once again, it is the appreciation of Christ
that is in view. That is worship. Worship - according to
God's thought - is always simply the appreciation of the
Lord Jesus; bringing up before God the sweet odour of a
heart-appreciation of His Son. That may sound simple, but
worship in its purest essence is what we think of the
Lord Jesus, expressed to the Father. That is worship. The
assembly is for that. Bethany speaks of that.

Martha - yes, Martha served. But it is adjusted service.
She is still serving, but it is all right; there is no
rebuke now. There is no circling round of her face with
anxiety now; she is not drawn around with care: she is
serving in a resurrection house. Here is adjusted
service, and service in the Lord's house is quite
according to His mind when the service is in fellowship
with, and in right proportion to, the worship. There is
an adjustment between the sisters now, you see. They were
disjointed before, because things were ill-proportioned
and out of place; now the adjustment has been made and
they are just getting on constantly together. It is
adjusted service.

Lazarus sat at meat, and of course he is the principle of
life, resurrection life. That, again, is a mark of the
Lord's spiritual house. So we have worship, adjusted
service, resurrection life.

Yes, but there is always some sinister thing not far
away: "Why was not this ointment sold for three
hundred pence, and given to the poor?" When you get
the assembly just as the Lord wants it you will always
find that the Devil is lurking very near. That may be a
compliment to the assembly, for anything that the Devil
does not cast his eye on jealously will surely not be
that which is satisfying the heart of the Lord. But it is
always like that. Just begin to get something that is
according to the Lord's heart, and you find a sinister
thing begin to circle round with a view to destroying
that worship, to divert that appreciation of the Lord. It
becomes a feature of the very assembly itself, that the
Devil jealously casts his eyes upon what the Lord is
getting, and would have that for himself.

You see, the Church is that which brings to the Lord
Jesus what He ought to have, and from eternity the Devil
has been out to rob him of that, and he will do it in the
assembly if he can, because the assembly is that in which
the Lord does get what His heart is set upon.

OUTWARD
AND UPWARD

Now we close by noting
the last thing in Luke 24:50-52.

"And he led them out until they were over against
Bethany: and he lifted up his hand, and blessed them. And
it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from
them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped
him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."

Three words: "led out", "blessed",
"carried up": out with the Lord, in His place
apart; under His blessing; and linked with Him in heaven
- to use Paul's words, "made... to sit together with
him in the heavenlies."

That is Bethany, that is the Church, that is what the
Lord wants to have in the life of His people today.

Go back over Bethany again and just allow your heart to
exercise itself on these things, and seek very definitely
that the Lord shall have in you just these features which
are according to His own mind. And what we do
individually, let us seek to do in those fellowships,
those assemblies, with which we are connected, that they
shall be true Bethanies, the village-expression of the
great city of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem.

First published by Witness and Testimony Publishers 1933 in the form of a 28pp booklet